Football Betting (or
Soccer Betting as some bookmaker websites call it to differentiate from
American Football) has been around in the betting arena for some time. Its only
recently however that it has taken hold of a big slice of the punters time and
money. This is almost entirely due to the internet and the advent of many new
types of bet and even betting formats.

As usual there are three ways to
get involved with your money when considering a bet on football. The Bookmaker,
the Betting Exchange and the Spread Bet. For our purposes we are going to
ignore football pools as they are self explanatory but you are quite safe
playing them especially what was the old
Littlewood
Pools. Pools are where all the money goes into one pot which the operator
takes a percentage from and the rest is divided between the winners in a
predetermind way.

Footbal betting is now world wide and around the clock
nearly every day of the year. The most popular games to bet on are the English
Premier league games because of the big names involved and a perception that it
is the most honest and straight forward of leagues. i.e Games are not rigged or
corrupted by outside influences which clearly does occur in matches from around
the world.

Basics

Football betting not
long ago was essentially accumulators on results of three possibly five or more
games. You had to win all to get paid. Those days are gone now and practically
all aspects of a football game can be waggered on.

For the purpose of
our explaination page here we are going to ignore the exotic bets which I am
sure you can find when you look into the betting opportunities very closely.
There are plenty of mainstream waggers for us to have a look at.

Football Betting has three main branches:

Result -
Win, lose or draw can be backed with Bookmakers, Spread firms,
Exchanges

Correct
Score - Predicting the final score exactly at the end of play

Match
incidents - Punters can wager on the number of corners, yellow cards, red
cards or penalties etc.

And these
can be played in four main ways: .

Fixed
Odds - Bookmakers and Exchanges

Spread Bet
Markets -

In-running -

Asian
Handicaps -

Result
Betting

The most
basic way of betting on football is to wager on the result at the end of play.
Sometimes you will get different odds for the result after ninety minutes which
confusingly means at the end of normal time. This often occurs in cup matches
when extra time is allowed to guarantee a result and thus the draw no longer
applies. So when when betting to ninety minutes the draw is always
available.

Fixed OddsBetting on the result with bookmakers
and betting exchanges is simply a matter of price evaluation. A home win for
example for Tottenham-Fulham may be priced at 5/4 with a tradional bookmaker or
2.25 (decimal odds) in an exchange market. Likewise the other possible
results. This is just a question of your judgement against the price on offer.
Many factors come into play such as; is it a cup game, are their relegation or
promotion issues and manager changes etc.

Spread BettingWhen
it comes to betting the result with spread betting firms things are more
esoteric. A common market format is to award 25 pts for a win 10 pts for a draw
and no points for a loss. The price then for Tottenham may be quoted at 13.5 -
14.5 for example and if you buy at 14.5 and Tottenham go on to win then you win
(25-14.5) x your stake. If your stake is £10 then you win £105. If
draw then you lose (14.5-10) x stake or £45 in this case. If lose then
you drop £145.

Asian Handicaping(For a full
explanantion of Asian Handicapping see below).Put
simply Asian Handicapping is a way to eliminatre the draw from the betting by
giving one team a handicap in the form of a fractional goal handicap. So in the
Tottenham-Fulham example the Fulham side might be given half a goal start, thus
it can never result in a draw. The other benefit of this form of betting is
that many people wish to bet on their team but they may well be a big odds-on
favourite and this is unappealing. Thus by example if we give Tottenham a minus
half a goal handicap then the price for a home win and away win will be closely
matched at near Even money (remembering the draw has been
eliminated).

The most common handicap is the half goal handicap which is
easily understood. The two other common options are whole goal handicap and
quarter goal handicap. When there is a whole goal handicap, i.e. Tottenham -1
or Fulham +1 then the result can obviously be a draw but in Asian Handicapping
there is never a draw so in the case that you back Tottenham with a -1 handicap
and they win 1-0 then the bet is void and your money is returned.

The
quarter goal handicap is more complicated and is explained below in
Asian Handicapping.

Correct Score

Correct score
betting is simply predicting the score line at the end of play. Most of the
time this is a fixed odds bet and so involves bookmakers or exchange
markets.

Many mathmatically minded people have tried at length to
analyse the distribution of correct scores with all sorts of factors included.
Very few have been able to get an advantage over experienced bookmaker odds
compilers. Better prices are likely to be found on exchanges where the margins
for this sort of bet is likely to be slimmer than with tradional ficed odds
betting. However there are many bookmakers offering prices of all British and
often European matches and so seeking best value is essential when betting on
correct scores.

Match
Incidents

Since the mid-1990s
statistics on all events within matches have been accrued by stats compilers
and most of these are available online. These include all the obvious events in
a football match for example; the number of corners, the number of yellow or
red cards, the time of the first goal or last goal etc.

There are
plenty of really exotic bets that compilers have dreamt up to either encourage
punters to part with their money. For instance the total of shirt numbers of
all the scorers or even the number of corners in the first half multiplied by
the number of corners in the second half. These are in general best left alone
but if you like a big price gamble for small stakes you can easily find these
available at the main bookmakers and spread betting firms.

Players
should always have in mind that odds setters have done their homework but if
you think you have an angle then its fun to pit your wits against theirs.
Research will probably give you a headache but one thing to know is that away
teams are much more likely to receive yellow and red cards and younger referees
tend to favour home sides because of the pressure from home crowds. The older
the referee the lower the chances of the Ref being biased towards the home
team. Good luck.

The most interesting markets to have an interest for
the whole match is either the time of the last goal or more especially the
scorer of the last goal. With this bet you are alive until the final
whistle.

BookingsAll the main places to have a bet (fixed
odds, spread and exchange) now run markets in Bookings. Points are allocated
for a card being given to a player. For the exchanges it is Yellow = 2pts and
Red = 5pts. For the other betting avenues its Yellow = 10pts, Red = 25pts (same
ratio). An extra condition to this bet market is that one player can only ever
get two cards, so the maximum is 1 Yellow and One Red for any individual
player.

The point of the market is to judge how much conflict there will
be in a particular game. So an edgy class between rivals could net a big
number.

Number of CornersBets are settled on the total number
of corners within 90 minutes. The typical starting values are: Under 10,
Between 10 and 12, Over 12. (Info provided by Opta
Sportsdata)

Number of offsidesBecomming more popular now.
(Info provided by Opta Sportsdata)

Substitutes Used The
typical starting values are: 0-3, 4-5, or 6.

Fixed
Odds Betting

ResultThis is the simplest form of betting on football. It
involves a price like Evens for Manchester City to beat Everton at home.
Bookmakers and Exchanges are the place to look for these and as there are many
different firms offering prices it is essential to look across as many outlets
as possible to get the best price. Many people chose three, four or five team
accumulators because of the short prices available on many matches, expecially
home wins.

It is fair to say that this market is well understood by all
the big players and the prices available are more or less correst, that is they
indicate the true odds of a result occuring and thus it is very difficult to
obtain any sort of advantage, i.e. getting a price to high for a particular
result to occur. There is nothing wrong however with taking a view about a
particular game because of some new factor that you know and you get an
afternoon of fun for your wager.

More fixed odds are available on
different aspects of a game like the half-time/full-time result. This means
that you must predict who is winning at half-time (or drawing) and the winner
at the end of the game. [Always know if this is a 90 minutes result of after
extra time when cup games are involved] This is obviously harder to do and thus
the prices reflect that by being much higher than for the simple result at the
end of play.

OthersThe are a whole range of prices available
on aspects of the game such as first goal scorer, last goal scorer and
predicting the exact score. Prices might be as low as 4-1 for a home win of 1-0
or 100-1 for a 3-3 result. Curiously enough prices to draw for two teams that
score heavily and concede heavily are the same for two teams that have really
dull stats where there are a lot of 0-0 or 1-1 draws. There is a lot to
consider with this type of bet and the odds compilers and as usual pretty close
to the mark. You may have some close knowledge about a team that will suggest
an unusual score line and then you can back a 0-2 result for instance at a big
price. In general it is fair to say that it is very difficult to find an edge
here.

Having a small wager on last goal scorer will afford you a match
long engagement with your bet as opposed to first goal scorer which can
obviously lose in the first few seconds of a game.

Spread
Betting

Spread betting the
result on a football game is probably more complicated than it should be and
the spread in the prices is likely to be a bigger edge for the spread firm than
a normal fixed odds bet. Where spread betting comes into its own is when you
are contemplating betting on some of the more exotic aspects of the
game.

Now there are any number of weird bets that spread firms have
dreamt up to entice you in. For instance the total number of shirt numbers of
the players who score goals. They know what they are doing and this is just a
punt at high risk unless you have inside information that a low number player
will likely be substituted at an early stage and a high numbered striker is his
replacement.

The more intersting markets involve things like corners or
cards. You can take a view with your knowledge that a long ball type of game
will render a lot of corners, or the opposite for turgid play. With cards you
can look at the history of two teams and believe that strong rivalry or bad
blood will lead to lots of confrontations.

A spread firm will likely
offer something like 5 points for a yellow card and 10 points for a red card
and then offer a sell/buy quote of 12-14. So if you buy at 14 and there are
three yellow cards then the result for you is [(3x5) - 14] multiplied by your
bet, you win one point. No cards at all and you lose the maximum which is 14 x
your stake. Have in mind that two yellows for one player also gets a red card
and so one man alone can score 20 points.

Likewise for corners it is a
simple matter of quoting a price for the total number which is quite boring so
they also offer multiples of corners in the first and second halves.

In
Running

With the advent of
fast internet acces for nearly all customers the bookmakers, spread firms and
exchanges operate in-running markets on all of the big games. That is to say
that as soon as the match starts prices will be available, and ever changing,
for most of the markets that were available before the start of the game.

These are volatile markets in the most part and are not for the faint
of heart. They do however throw up the possibility of trading in-running
positions. For instance if you place a win bet before the match starts then as
soon as play begins and time is eaten away without any goals then the price
must fall or rise (depending of which result you have bet on) and present you
with a chance to liquidate your open position at a profit.

There are
many people out there who spend lots of time compiling stats on the scoring
rates during matches, for instance there are more goals scored in the last five
minutes of both halves than any other five minute period during a match
(because they are tired). There are many angles into this type of bet and the
markets are very liquid, meaning lots of punters and lots of money. When that
is true the prices generally reflect true odds but if you have a particular
notion about some aspect of the game, like a teams fitness, then that could be
your way to play. But it is volatile and you must be in control of your
bets.

Normal market forces do come into play nearing the end of play.
When a team is leading by only one goal then backers of the win will naturally
start to get jittery and tend to try and lay the team they backed to ensure a
profit. This lay money will push up the price for victory by the leading team
and thus potentially offer you value but at a very short price. Its a regular
market with regular market vagaries.

Asian
Handicaps

Asian Handicaps are
designed to eliminate the draw from the result as football is the only major
sport where the draw plays a significant part of the likely result. This is
achieved by giving a goal handicap to both teams and in the event of a 1 goal
handicap still producing a draw then the bet is void and your money is
returned. Asian Handicap betting is offered by bookmakers and exchanges and to
lessor degree and in a more complicated format by spread firms.

The
Half Goal HandicapThe easiest bet to understand and the more likely to
be seen is the half goal handicap where a match like Everton/Birmingham can be
quoted as Everton (-½) Evens, Birmingham (+½) 10/11. This means
if you back Everton at Evens you only win your bet if Everton win by one or
more goals. A draw or a loss for Everton and you lose your bet. Likewise if you
back Birmingham at 10/11 and the game is drawn 1-1 then you win your
bet.

The Whole Goal HandicapIt is important to understand
that there is no draw result available. Here in the Everton/Birmingham example
the prices can be quoted as Everton (-1) 5/4, Birmingham (+1) 8/11. So if you
back Everton and they win by more than one goal you win your bet. If they win
by exactly one goal you get your money back.

The Quarter Goal
HandicapOften odds compilers will take the view that there isn't much
between teams and therefore a half goal handicap is too much and the price
would be far away from Even money which is the general aim of Asian
Handicapping. So in this instance a ¼ or ¾ goal handicap will be
quoted. This bet is more complicated.

Using the Everton/Birmingham
example the prices can be quoted as Everton (-¼) 5/6, Birmingham
(+¼) 11/10. What the ¼ goal handicap means is two seperate bets
for half your stake, one at zero goal handicap and the other at ½ goal
handicap. So if you place a bet of £20 on Everton (-¼) at 5/6 you
have in fact placed two bets. The first bet is £10 on Everton (0 goals)
at 5/6 and the second bet is £10 on Everton (-½ goals) at 5/6.

With two seperate bets being employed the ¼ goal handicap will
often be displayed as Everton (-0,-½) or Birmingham (+0, +½)
which looks a bit confusing and it is. SO the score starts Everton
-¼, Birmingham 0.

Possible Results for Everton -¼ goal Asian Handicap at
5/6

Everton Result

£10 (0) bet

£10 (-½) bet

Total

0 - 0

Void

- £10

- £10

1 - 0

+ £8.33

+ £8.33

+ £16.66

2 - 0

+ £8.33

+ £8.33

+ £16.66

0 - 1

- £10

- £10

- £20

1 - 1

Void

- £10

- £10

2 - 2

Void

- £10

- £10

Remember that with
the ¼ goal handicap whenever there is a draw, one half of your bet is
always voided and your stake money is returned.